This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about how to Make Bad Habits Harder

We rely on habits because our brain needs to devote energy to new and difficult tasks, not brushing our teeth or remembering how to get to work each day. We are also incredibly lazy, and we can use laziness to our advantage when trying to break a bad money habit.

• Example: This isn’t a bad money habit, but it’s a good example. Let’s say you watch too much TV and you want to stop or reduce how much you watch TV. Unplug your TV - creates a barrier to overcome before indulging in the habit. I don’t know about you, but often it’s that little bit of effort that I need to do something or get started on something that keeps me from doing it at all. You can use the same thing 

• Turning to money habits, let’s say you shop too much online on your phone. If you’re like me, you use Amazon nearly every day. If overspending is a problem and you routinely shop and buy things on your smart phone, then remove all shopping apps from your phone. This way, when you want to buy something on Amazon or wherever, you need to do it on your computer instead. It’s a small change, but you’d be surprised how much it can reduce overspending by just having a small barrier to following through with the bad habit we want to break.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Yesterday, I talked about how to identify your bad money habits. Once you have 1 or 2 or 10 bad money habits that need to get out of your life, what’s next?

Something I came across over and over again while researching this week’s theme was the advice: Don't try to change a bunch of things all at one time. Pick just 1 bad habit to focus on

• Problem with resolutions or goals is that we can try to accomplish too much at one time, and it leads to failure. 

• Gave up sweets for Lent. After the first week it became a lot easier. Had I also given up wine or tried to build another new habit along with it, it would have been much harder for me

• Maybe you have a habit of going out for lunch more than you’d like and it’s is a bad habit you want to break. Just focus on that. 

• Often better to focus on easier habits that aren’t so ingrained or addictive, so you can break it sooner, replace it with a better habit, and get a quick win that will be motivating in continuing with improving your financial health in other areas

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about how to identify Your Bad Money Habits 

• 1st step in getting rid of your bad money habits is simply to recognize those habits. We’re often blind to our own shortcomings in many ways and our own bad habits are no exception

• My bad money habits

• Impulse buying - boredom lead to shopping; shopping with a list and sticking to it, and adding things to my cart, but waiting a week or 2 or longer to buy it. 

• Name the habit you want to change. Examples:

• Look first to spending. These are where some of the most destructive bad money habits live is in your spending habits. It’s also the source of debt and why many people can’t get out of debt permanently, because they have bad spending habits. Daily coffee, mindless online shopping on your cell phone or ipad, eating out too much, booking a vacation without the cash to pay for it, impulse purchases at the grocery store, shopping as a hobby or something to do, buying lottery tickets

• Other bad money habits - looking too often at your bank or investment accounts, not having your saving and investing on auto-pilot, not running the numbers on something before you purchase - especially a larger purchase 

So take the time to really pay attention to your habits and routines. With many bad habits, there’s a little voice in our head that occasionally whispers “I don’t think you should do that”. We often tell that voice to shut up…I’m going to have that entire sleeve of Oreos! Or maybe after we do that bad money habit we feel guilty. We all know that feeling, and when we pay attention to that nagging feeling, it can help identify the bad money habits that should be eradicated. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about the first step in changing your bad money habits, and that is to simply understand how habits work.

Our brains need habits to function, and they help us do everything from playing an instrument well, to arriving at work each day, to remembering to brush our teeth every night before bed. Can you imagine if the things you do each day required the same mental effort each time? So our habits free our minds up to focus our energy and attention on the things that are new or require more effort. 

The other important thing to understand about habits is that our habits are tied to cues, routines, & rewards - understanding this habit loop will help you better understand the habits that don’t serve you and make sure you tie a reward to any new habits to make them stick. 

• Cue - need something sweet after each meal

• Routine - Grab a hershey kiss, a fun size chocolate bar or some other piece of small candy

• Reward - obvious - the sugary sweetness & sugar’s dopamine, drug-like impact on my brain

And lastly, you’re not going to be able to ditch a habit overnight. Those connections between cue, routine, and reward can be very strong and difficult to break. New habits take time to become routine and automatic - 2021 study - 2-3 months to form a new habit.

So be patient with yourself and understand the habit loop so you can stop the habits you don’t like and replace them with something new, tied to a healthier reward. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.    

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast! I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor and I’m using my 15 years of experience as a financial advisor to help you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision.

On this podcast, I cover everything from investing, to retirement spending, to taxes in retirement in just a few minutes each day, so if you’re 5-10 years on either side of retirement, and looking for some daily doses of retirement planning wisdom, stick around this week as I talk about Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Did you know that 40% of the things you do each day are habits? Our brain needs habits, so we’re not constantly needing to expend energy on relearning things we do regularly. As a result, we just go through the motions on many things we do regularly, without giving it a second thought. Which is fine for good habits, but what about our bad habits?

Because we don't maintain conscious control over our habits, bad ones can be hard to break, including our bad financial habits. So, to make better financial decisions, we need to cultivate good habits.

So this week, I’ll talk about 5 ways you can better recognize and work to improve your bad money habits, and turn them into good habits. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! Come on back tomorrow…where I’ll talk about…

My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

It’s Sunday, which means...it’s recap time here on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast

This week the theme was: Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

In case you missed any episodes, here’s what we discussed this week…

• Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

• Why You Should Always Consider The Net After Tax Return

• Understanding Taxable vs. Tax Sheltered Accounts

• 3 Considerations When Choosing Investment Account Types

• Asset Location 101

• Asset Location: Beyond The Basics

The most important takeaway from this week is 

Tomorrow, I’m starting a brand new theme: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks. 

I spend a lot of time on YouTube, I mean A LOT of time. More than I care to admit. It’s usually my go to app when I’m bored and I pick up my phone. Especially these days where I’ve been home with a newborn for the last 3 months, and I spend a lot of time snuggling with him while he eats or sleeps. 

I recently came across an interesting video on YouTube that talks about money habits. About 40% of the things you do each day are habits. Because we don't maintain conscious control over our habits, bad ones can be hard to break. Many of our financial decisions are based on habits. So, to make better financial decisions, we need to cultivate good habits.

So next week I’ll share with you some of the insights from this video with my own spin, of course, to help you recognize ways you might be sabotaging yourself with bad habits, and how to cultivate a good habit instead. 

Thank you so much for listening this week! If you’re enjoying the podcast, chances are someone else you know who is getting close to retirement could also benefit from checking it out, so please share the show with a friend, a neighbor, your sister, or your boss. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to someone you know who is eyeing retirement. 

Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. I hope you have a blessed Sunday. My name is Ashley Micciche, this is the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast.

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

Today, 

• Holding periods for taxable accounts and gains (longer holding period, better return, all else being equal)

• Be careful about owning mutual funds in taxable accounts

• Understand implications for withdrawals in retirement - which accounts to draw from first 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.   

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

Today, I’m talking about asset location 101.

Asset location, not to be confused with asset allocation, refers to which types of investments you own in different account types. 

You would never own a tax free municipal bond in an IRA account, because that negates all the tax free income benefits from that bond. Likewise, you should avoid investing in high turnover mutual funds and REITs (real estate investment trusts) in taxable accounts, since they’re way more inefficient when it comes to how those are taxed. So those are best placed in IRA or Roth accounts, where you won’t be penalized for owning these types of tax inefficient investments. 

Asset location also refers to keeping more growth oriented investments inside of Roth accounts. Since those accounts you’ll usually tap into last in retirement, they’ll be invested for the longest period of time. So the Roth should be the most aggressively invested of your accounts, in order to maximize the tax-free growth and the usually long time horizon of that account. 

Essentially, asset location is about investing in the right investments within the right accounts. That's because different types of investments have different tax rules, and different types of accounts have different tax treatments as well. 

Being tax efficient can increase your lifetime returns significantly, so it’s a very important step when selecting investments that most people, especially most DIY investors fail to consider. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.       

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

Today, I’m talking about the top 3 considerations when deciding where and how to invest your money, especially when deciding between funding different account types - like a Roth vs. a taxable account, vs. a Traditional 401k.

• Tax rates now - marginal, including state taxes 

• The term "marginal tax rate" refers to the tax rate paid on your last dollar of taxable income

• Future tax rates - likely higher or lower when money is needed?

• Timeline for needing the funds - 5 years for buying a house or 10 or 20 years for annual income in retirement? 

These factors should all help you determine both which accounts you should be prioritizing saving in, and which types of investments you should own in those accounts (more on that tomorrow)

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.   

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Maximizing Net After Tax Returns In Your Investment Portfolio

Today, I’m talking about the difference between Taxable vs. Tax-Deferred vs. Tax Free (Roth) Accounts

The reason this matters…is that the net, after tax return, not the gross return matters most. 

Net after tax return in a taxable investment account might be a couple % less a year after taxes vs. a Traditional 401k or a Roth, depending on how long you;ll be investing for before you withdraw your money. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.   

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance